The Swim

The morning alarms (I set two plus the hotel wake-up call) sounded at 4:30 AM. The in-room coffee maker served well enough to prepare my pre-race meal of organic oatmeal with berries and almonds.

Mike and I met the rest of the Team in the hotel lobby at 5:30 so we could walk as a team to transition.

Note: 'transition' refers to a large penned area with three gates where the athletes park their bikes and gear. It serves as a hub with the spokes being 'swim-in', 'bike out/in', and 'run out/in.' With three legs of the event, we have two transitions, noted as T1 and T2.

The national anthem completed over the loud speaker, our first wave was in the water and swimming shortly after 7:30.

We were the wave with the green swim caps. As planned, I quickly fell to the back of the pack. I'm a slow swimmer and I was not about to defy expectations today. By the first tetrahedral pylon indicating our turn to the left, the blue caps were upon me. Waves were being sent four minutes apart. Halfway to the final turn, the yellow caps were in the mix.

I was not the last greenie to finish the swim though - and my time of 45 minutes was right at what I expected to swim. And much improved over my 30 minute time at half the distance last year.

Running up the carpeted path toward transition, I was well within my race plan. I waved to Mike, Tiffany, and the TNT gang watching us all come in. The wetsuit strippers helped me out of my wetsuit.

Into to T1 and the bike...